^ 37S 



SENATOR FROM liOUISIANA. 



SPEECH 



HON. TIMOTHY 0. HOWE, 

OF WISCONSIN, 



^ENATE OF THE UnITED StATES, 



FEBRUARY 17, 1875. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICB. 
1875. 






WaBt.Bes-Ste&.3oc. 



SPEECH 

OP 

HOX. TIMOTHY 0. HOWE. 



Tbe Senate liaviu<r under consideration the following resolution submitted by 
Mr. MoRTOX on tlie 8th instant: 

Resolved, That P. B. S. Pinchback be admitted as a Senator from the State of 
Louisiana fer the term of six years, beginning on the 4t)i of March, 1873 — 

Mr. HOWE said : 

Mr. President: the pending resolution brings to tbe considera- 
tion of tbe Senate tbe election whicb took place in the State of Lou- 
isiana in 1872. The Senator from New York [Mr. Conkling] the other 
day referred to that election as the dismal swamp in our politics. I 
think I have traversed that swamp ; at least I know that whereas 
I was once on one side of the swamp I am now on the other side ; 
wherefore I think I can tell tbe Senate something about that por- 
tion of our political geography. I concede that it is a tangled maze, 
but it is not without a plan ; and I propose this evening for the first 
time to state my view of that plan. 

It has been said that the story of that electioti is " a thrice-told 
tale." That may .be true ; and yet I want to tell the story oace more. 
I shall of course have to say some things that have been said l)y others, 
and better said ; but nevertheless the story I shall tell of that'electiun 
is a story I have not yet heard told. 

Mr. President, inthesummer of 1872 Henry C.Warmoth was governor 
of Louisiana. He had been elected by tbe republican party in 18(18. 
By the democratic party lie was probably hated more thoroughly, if 
not more justly, than any man in the State. Suddenly, and some 
months before the election of that year, the voice of ]irophecy rang 
through the Union predicting that, however other States might go in 
November, the State of Louisiana would go for the democr.itic ticket, 
aud that the Legislature of that State the winter following would 
send Mr. Warmoth to the Senate of the United States. 

Close upon the heel of that prediction came intelligence that Gov- 
ernor Warmoth was doing his utmost to secure tbe success of that 
jjarty which had so ])itterly opposed him. The assertion was every- 
where made that under the anomalous laws of Lotiisiaua tbe result 
of an election there depended less upon the disposition of the voters 
than upon the resolution of the governor, tliat liis control of tlie ma- 
cliinery of election was so absolute that victory was sure to alight 
upon whatever standard he carried. 

If, as is stated. Warmoth did bargain to deliver the State to tbe 
enemy, he certainly did his best to keep the bargain. His first move- 
ment was to select f)ne H. P. IJlancliard for State registrar. Upon that 
ofiicer by law ilevolved the duty of making a registration of tbe vot- 



ers of tlie Sliite. To aid liini in tliat work lie api)oiiitcfl a supervisor 
of elections for each parish in the State outside of New OrleaLis. Mr. 
Blaiioliard proved an able lieutenant, but not altogether a trusty one. 
He has since pul)lished under his own oath a detailed statement of 
the frauds he caused to be perpetrated in the course of rejjjistration. 
To repeat tlie catalogue here would be tedious. It is enough to say 
tliat if there is any single fi-aud possible in registration not enumer- 
ated in his schedule it is one invented since 1872. 

His story is so monstrous that it would challenge credulity itself 
if it were uncorrol)orat.ed. But it is so corrol)orated as to defy un- 
T)elief. The matchless rascality of the man is manifest, whether he 
did the things he swore he did, or swore he did the things he did not 
do. Such a man was not likely to be employed to serve the State, 
but very apt to be employed to betray it. And one who would 
betray his State would not hesitate to l)etray his coconsjiirators 
when inspired thereto either l)y thirst for gain or thirst for revenge. 
His story is corroborated bj' the circumstance that to many of the 
parishes in the State he sent practiced cheats from +he city of New 
Orleans to act as supervisors of elections. That could not have been 
necessary for any honest purpose. Capable sui)eivisors might have 
been readily found in every parish. Unscrupulous ones seem not to 
have been everywhere available. The great planters in the parishes 
were nearly all democrats but were not all rogues. New Orleans liad 
a surplus and New Orleans was drawn upon to make up the defi- 
ci(Micy. His story is corroborated also by numerous witnesses who 
testify to s])eciiic frauds in various ])arishcs. liy artifices too numer- 
ous to mention great numbers weie excluded from registering who 
ought to have been registered ; great numbers were registerefl who 
ought not to have been. By a singular coincidence it ha]ipened that 
the voters who were not registered were repul)licans, and the regis- 
tered who were not voters democrats. 

To show that he meant business and to prevent the unregistered 
from voting, Mr. Blauchard issued private instructions to his super- 
visors in the following terms: 

You will please direct (loiiunissioners of election to receive no votes upon the 
affidavits suiiplied by the radical paitv under the enfoic(>nieiit act unless tlie per- 
son apidyiii;; or oU'eiing to vote is known by themto have been wrongfully deprived 
of registration. 

Mr. Blanchard's story is corroborated by th(> fact tliat he was asked 
to consent tliat one of tlii' three coinniissioncrs of election at the ditt'er- 
ent voting ])recincts should be a icjiubjiean, and he refused it. 

Such a minority representation could of course do no wrong. It 
could not even prevent wrong-(h)ing. It could at most only aid the 
detection of wi'oiig-doing. 

His story was also corroborated by another circumstance. Under 
the enforcenurnt act, so called, of 1872, the circuit court of tlie United 
States a.p])oiiited supervisors of elcM-tion in many of the parishi^s and 
voting precincts. Those officers coiihl not control the voting or the 
counting of the votes. They could only sci-utinizo those acts. Ac- 
cordingly Mr. Blauchard sent a secret circular to his siijiervisora, in- 
structing them to count the votes lor electors and nuqnbers of Con- 
gress first, and then to cniint the votes for State olficers, '' bearing 
in mind," he added, "the fact that the United States supervisors of 
elections and dei>uty marshals have no right whatever to scrutinize, 
ins])ect, or be |)resent at the counting of I lie State and parish vote." 
Clearly .such inspection could have lieen objectionable only to a dis- 
hontist count. An honest count would have courted scrutiny. 



His story is further corroborated by the strange results of registra- 
tion in many localities. Of those results two specimens nnist suthce. 

The parish of East Baton Eouge had a white poi)ulatiou In 1870 of 
6,471. The white voters registered in 1872 were 1,482. Its colored 
population was 11,342, and its colored vote registered was only 1,559^ 
exceeding the white vote by less than one hundred. 

The parish of Orleans had a total population iu 1870 of 191,418. 
Its male population more than twenty-one years of age was 47,737. 
The male citizens more than twenty-one years of age were .18,586, 
showing that 9,151 males more than twenty-one years of age were 
unnaturalized aliens. Yet in 1872 the State registrar not only regis- 
tered 20,581 colored voters, but registered 34,501 white voters. Thus 
the voters registered in 1872 numbered 17,496 more than the voters 
found by the census two years previous. 

Unless Mr. IjI.i iichard was more liberal in registering colored voters 
in the parish of Orleans than his subordinates were in any other par- 
ish, that whole excess must be charged to over-registration of white 
votes. A witness testified that as many as one hundred and twenty-one 
were registered froin a single residence in the city. 

Mr. President, in the light of such facts it is quite safe to conclude 
that if Mr. Bhinehard ever consulted truth in any of his utterances, 
it was not when he swore he would discharge his official duties ac 
cording to law, but rather when he swore he had discharged them iu 
violation of all law. Such was the character of the State registrar 
and such the character of his work. The next step was to gather the 
votes. The polling-places in the several parishes were selected by 
Blanchard's parish supervisors according to their uncontrolled dis- 
cretion. It need only be olisevved that tlie diseretion some of those 
supervisors displayed in the discliai'ge of that duty i)roved that they 
were well titted for the scandalous trust reposed in them. Each poll 
was presided over by three commissioners of election selected by Mr. 
Blanchard's parish supervisors. 

The law charged the commissioners with very simple duties. They 
were to maintain order at the several voting precincts, receive the bal- 
lot offered by each c^ualified voter, deposit it in the box, aud make 
three different records of that vote. 

Of course the commissioners conld not be cheated by republicans. 
They could cheat republicans in three ways : First, by receiving demo- 
cratic votes from illegal voters ; second, "by refusing republican votes 
from legal voters ; third, by allowing turl>nlence and tunnilt to deter 
reimblicaus from offering their votes. That they did cheat by each 
of those methods has been testilied not merely by scoi-es but by 
thousands of witnesses. As an example of the first method of cheat- 
ing I will cite Madison Parish. There the white vote registered was 
360. The whole white population was but 936, and yet the democratic 
vote was returned at 828, almost three times the" number of regis- 
tered white voters, and almost equal to the wliole white population. 

As an example of the second method of clieating Caddo Parish is 
cited. There, while a white population of 5,913 was made to register 
1,549 white voters and return 1,817 democratic votes, a colored popu- 
lation of 15,799 yielded but 3,339 colored voters and but 1,.576 republican 
votes. C. W. Keating swore that he saw 363 turned away from one 
box in Caddo Parish who liad tried all day to vote. In Bossier Parish 
alone over 1.300 republican voters swore tlieir votes were rejected. 
In the case of Kelhigg vs. Warmoth et als., in the United States dis- 
trict court, the judge states as a fact, found that over 4,000 colored 



6 

repnl)licans from different parishes SAvore to their offer to vote and 
the denial of it. 

Of intimidation examples were proved in a great many parishes in 
Jackson, in Saint Lanilry, in Livingston, in East Baton Ronge, in 
Bossier and others. 

At six (/clock p. m. the polls closed, and the next step was to secnre 
a conut of the ballots. For that imrpose the law reqnired that " im- 
mediately upon the closing of the polls" the commissioners should 
seal the boxes and proceed with them to the parish supervisor. One 
would suppose that democratic officers, hungering for honesty as 
democrats claim to be, might carry sealed ballot-boxes from one town 
to another in the same parish without letting any ballots spill out or 
any leak in. But Mr. Blanchard's commissioners could not do even 
that. How many boxes were stuffed is not known; for no investiga- 
tion has yet been made. ili\ Forman, of the Warmoth board of re- 
turns, testitied that the boxes from one precinct in New Orleans and 
one in Jefferson Parish were stuffed ; and other witnesses swore to 
the same treatment in East Baton Rouge, in Point Coupee, in Madi- 
son, in Grant, Webster, Saint Helena, and other parishes. 

The next act upon the programme was to count the ballots, ascer- 
tain the number for each candidate, make triplicate statements of the 
result in tabular form, forward two statements to the governor by 
different conveyances, and file one with the archives of the parish. 
Even that duty was only partially performed. Six whole parishes 
were cither not returned at all or returned in such a manner as to be 
excluded from count by the democratic board. One of those parishes 
was Iberville, which had a registered vote of 743 white, and 3,30:i 
colored. Thirty-tive printed pages of the report of the Committee 
on Privileges and Elections are occupied with affidavits and other 
papers to justify the exclusion of that parish fiom count. 

One Thorp was the suporNisor for that parish. He had been sent 
up fn»m New Orleans. The republicans seem to have assumed he 
was sent, not for honest but for fiaudulent purposes. They sus- 
spected that he meant to cheat in the count. They therefore tried 
to witness the count. They were kept outside of the coui't-house. 
They molested no one ; they made but one demand, to wit, that the 
votes should be counted. Thor]» and the commissioners of election 
kept them there until the night of the 5th, long enough to have 
counted the vote ten times. And then the connnissioners from each 
precinct drew up a formal certificate that they were afraid to count — 
not afraid to refuse, but afraid to grant the only thing demanded of 
them— and so left. Madison Parish was registered at 360 white and 
2,365 colored. It was counted by the democratic board at 828 demo- 
cratic, and 1,*227 repuljlican votes. That return was made, not in Madi- 
son Parish, but, according to the testimoT)y, in the city of New Or- 
leans, and was a manifest forgery. Mr. John Ray stated before the 
Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections thiit the returns from 
other parishes were evident forgeries, and instanced Grant, Point 
Coujjee, and East Baton Ronge as examples. He said the committee 
could be satisfied of the fact l»y an inspection of the papers. Whether 
they were so satisfied or not does not appear. 

And here the fourth act in the farce of the election of 1872 ended. 
The performance of registering, balloting, counting, and returning 
was concliuied. All these acts had been played under democratic 
management. It isnot only manifest the republicans had not cheated, 
but it is evident they had no jiossihle chance to cheat. The demo- 
cratic party had on the contrary the fulh-st opportunity to cheat in 



every stage of the performance, and they availed themselves of it. 
The republicans had been denied registration and registered republi- 
cans had been excluded from voting. Republican votes cast had 
been abstracted from the boxes ; democratic votes not cast had been 
thrust into the boxes. The count had been falsified and returns had 
been forged. All these villainies had been performed V>y Warmoth's 
subordinates. One thing remained to be done. To garner the fruits of 
all these frauds, it was necessary to read and add up the votes returned 
from the several parishes and proclaim the persons elected to the 
several offices. One would suppose it could matter but little who did 
that work. Republicans read like democrats — everything except the 
constitution. Both parties usethesame system of arithmetic. Given 
the same returns to read and add up, it is hardly supposable that a 
republican and democrat would ditter much in the result. But 
Warmoth well knew that nothing short of an unscrupulous canvass 
of the returns could utilize the mammoth fi-auds which had preceded 
the returns. To secure such a canvass he himself came to the front. 

Then was seen in Louisiana such an exhibition of legerdeniain as 
never had a parallel elsewhere. The limitations of the constitution 
were ignored ; the commands of the statutes were defied ; the sanctity 
of the courts outraged, the authority of commissions contemned. 

The law of Louisiana confided the canvass of returns from the 
several parishes to a tribunal called the board of returns. That board 
in November, 1872, consisted of the governor, lieutenant-governor, 
the secretary of state ex officio, and of one John Lynch and one T. C. 
Anderson, by name. Of that number, the governor was tlie only one 
who had contracted to sell tlie State to the democratic party. In or- 
der to deliver the State according to contract he knew he must create 
a new board, and before he could create a new board it was necessary 
to get rid of the existing board. To that work he addressed himself. 
The law required the canvass to commence ten days after tiie elec- 
tion. Accordingly, on the 13th of November the board assembled. 
The governor, the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, and 
John Lynch only were present. Anderson and the lieutenant-gov- 
ernor had been candidates before the people at the preceding election. 
Warmoth had no difficulty in persuading his colleagues that those 
two members were disqualified for acting as returning officers. The 
law of the State so declared. Lynch ami Henon, who was secretary 
of state, readily acquiesced in the proposition to drop Mr. Anderson 
and the lieutenant-governor from the board. But no magistrate was 
present, so the members were not sworn in, and witlumt a<loiiting 
any resolution the board adjourned to the next day. Thus in this new 
Genesis, "the evening and the morning were the first day." 

On the 14th the board reassembled. The same persons were pres- 
ent, and a magistrate was alsi) in attendance, who proceeded to ad- 
minister the oath of office to Warmoth, to Herron, the secretary of 
state, and to Lynch. The lieutenant-goverucu- declined to be sworn 
until the question of his disability was resolved. When a quorum 
had been sworn they resolved unanimously that Pinchback and An- 
derson were disqualified. Thus two vacancies were made. But the 
law required those vacancies to be filled by tbe remaining members 
of the board. Of those members Warmoth felt the majority to 
be unreliable for his purpose. Immediately after Herron had voted 
with Lynch and Warmoth to create two vacancies one Mr. Jack 
Wharton appeared upon the stage, who pulled out a commission from 
Warmoth appointing him to be secretary of state in the place of Herron, 
removed. The blow was sudden ; it staggered the rei)ubli('an mem- 



8 

bers, but it was not admitted to be a kuock-dowu. Herroa and 
Lyncli denied the governor's power to remove the secretary of state; 
Warmoth and Wharton asserted that power. Herrou and Lynch 
chose Long-street and Hawkins to fill the two vacancies. Warmoth 
and Wharton chose F. H. Hatch and Durant Da Ponte to fill the 
same vacancies. Thns two sets of men appeared, each claiming to 
be the board of returns. Which was the legal board depended, of 
course, npou the question wlietlier the governor could rightfully 
remove the secretary of state. If he could, then Wharton was secre- 
tary of state and Warmoth and Wharton had legally chosen Hatch 
and Da Ponte to fill the vacancies. If the governor could not make 
such a removal, then of course Herron was still secretary of state 
and Herron and Lynch had legally chosen Longstreet and Hawkins 
to fill these vacancies. 

Kight here it may as well be said as anywhere that the supreme court 
of Louisiana has since determined that the governor could not make 
any such removal. Believing such removal to be illegal, the Herron 
party commenced legal proceedings in the proper court of the State, 
designated as the eiglith district court, to restrain the Wharton party 
from assuming to act as the returning board. That suit was commenced 
on the 14th day of November, and on tlie 10th the court pronounced 
judgment against the defendants, thus affirming the authority of the 
Herron board. But Warmoth was not the sort of governor to sur- 
render to the judgment of a court. The court having adjudged the 
Herron board to be legal upon the 19th, on the next day Warmoth pro- 
ceeded to change the law. To effect that, he drew from a pigeon-hole 
an old bill which had passed both houses of tlie Legislature during 
the previous winter; and then, after the Legislature which passed it 
had ceased to exist, he approved the bill and proclaimed it a law. By 
that maneuver he claimed to liave repealed the previous act of 1870 
under which the Herron board was created. But the constitution of 
Louisiana provides that — 

All officers shall continue to discharge the duty of their offices until their succes- 
sors are inducted into office. 

The bill which the governor approved on the 20th provides that 
the board of returns should lie elected by the Senate ; and the senate 
was not in session and could not be convened until the returns were 
canvassed. The way before the governor seemed rugged. Grave dif- 
ficulties still confrimted him. \\'liat he must have was a new board 
to canvass the returns. The constitution of liis State said to him the 
existing board of returns shall continue to discharge their duties un- 
til their successors are iiulucted into office. The new statute which 
he had just proclaimed said tliat the successors of the existing board 
could not be inducted into office until they had been elected by the 
senate. The genius of tlie governor was e((ual to the occasion. He 
straightway appointed himself to be a sort of deputy senate, and 
then proceeded to eli-ct a board of returns. So appeared a new pre- 
teixler to the functions of the hoard of returns for Louisiana. 

In order th:it this new board might not be bothered by the dis- 
trict court in which .Judge Dihhh' ])reside(l, the governcu- next ]>ro- 
ceeded to coniniission one W. A. Klniore to be judge (if that court. 
He liad precisely as much authority to issue such commission as he 
had to conuulssion a chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. But he issued the coiumission. He sent Judge Elmore to the 
conit-nKini "early,"' according to his own testimony. Accordingly 
when .ludgt^ Dilihle ariived t(i open his court at the lisual hour in the 
moruiiig he found .Judge Klniore already ujion the bench. That there 



might be no more mistakes in serving process he also connnissioued 
a sheriff. As suits to try tlie title to offices are ])rosecuted in the 
name of the attorney-general of the State, and as he did not want 
the title of any of his own friends questioned, he commissioned a new 
attorney-general. He commissioned many other otlicers. All this 
was done without any canvass of the vote by any board whatever, 
and was done in dehance of all the law there was in Louisiana. But 
in spite of all these acrobatic feats, the Herron board obstinately per- 
sisted in their right to count the votes. 

Such, then, was the situation on the 21st of November. On that 
day Governor Waruioth issued his proclamation convening the 
General Assembly. The constitution of that State gives to the gov- 
ernor authority to convene the Legislature on "extraordinary occa- 
sions." Governor Warmoth seemed to think that was an extraor- 
dinary occasion. It is doubtful if so manifest a truth as that was 
ever shaken out from between his teeth befoi'e. Indeed, that was an 
extraordinary occasion. Nothing like it ever before occurred in the 
history of our States. It is to be hoped that nothing like it will ever 
occur again. 

The occasion was this : An election had been held, every step in 
which had been imbedded in fraud. Of that election the governor 
held partial returns ; of those returns he wanted enough counted to 
return a Legislature which would declare McEiiery governor and send 
himself to the Senate of the United States. For that purpose he had 
improvised a board of returns. But the laws of Louisiana said 
his board should not canvass those returns. Those laws designated 
another board for that purpose. But Warmoth said the latter board 
should not have the returns to canvass. He had gone on commission- 
ing officers as long as he dared ^^ it hnut count of the returns. But 
there are limits hcyoud which the boldest criminals dare not go. 
Even Warmoth hesitated to apiinint members to the Legislature of 
the St.ate, although he claimed the right to apj)oint the men who 
should select the Legislature. 

The occasion uhis an extraordinary one, but hardly so extraordi- 
nary as the way chosen by the governor to meet that occasion. The 
sole difficulty of the occasion was to get a Legislature counted in 
suited to his purposes. The way he took to meet the occasi(Ui was 
to summon a Legislature to convene wiihont aiii/ coiuithuj. He might 
with the same propriety have called the assembly together without 
any election. Manifestly it was a call for volunteers. Defying the 
tribunal designated by law to ascertain and publish the results of the 
election, he summoned his retainers from the parishes to muster with 
his police of the metropolis ami inst.all the Legislature of his choice, 
regardless of the popular choice. The Legislature was summoned to 
meet on the 9th of December. 

The interval was spent by the rival parties in various litigation, 
either to prevent things from being done or to test the validity of 
things done. After forcing Dibble from the bench no further change 
was made by Warmoth in the constitution of the courts, except that 
one of the judges of the supreme court was induced to resign his seat 
to become Warnmth's attorney and allow Warmoth to till the va- 
cancy. What the inducement was for that resignation does not ap- 
pear. The suit between the so-called Herron board and the Wharton 
board was removed to the supreme court of the State. By that court 
it was held that the former and not the latter was the legal board of 
returns. Thus it was settled, if the courts of Louisiana can be al- 
lowed to interpret her own laws, that in spite of Wharton's appoint- 



w 

ment Herron continued to be secretary of state. That, in spite of 
Warnioth's conspiracy with Wharton, Herron and his associates were 
alone authorized to canvass the retnrus, and in spite of Warmoth's 
tampering with statutes, they ah)ne continued to have that author- 
ity. That decision was not pronounced, however, until January. 
Wherefore between the "20th of November, when Warmoth attempted 
to abrogate the Herron board by repealing the statute which created 
it, until the 9th of December, when the Legislature assembled, two 
boards continued to make believe canvass the returns. One had par- 
tial returns before them but no authority to consider them. One had 
full authority to consider them but no returns to consider. 

Notwithstanding these embarrassments both boards published be- 
fore the yth of December full lists of members elected to the senate 
and to the house. It is evident that in a contest very little weight 
could be given to either of those lists. To the list made by the 
Herron board it is well objected that the board had not adequate 
evidence before it on which to make a determination. It was denied 
the official returns. The same objection is urged against the deter- 
mination of the other board. It had only partial returns. From 
some of the parishes it had received no returns, from some it had 
forged returns, from others it had returns notoriously and infamously 
false. Besides it had no authority to determine anything as to the 
result of the election upon any evidence whatever. One tribunal 
abused a jurisdiction it had, the other usurped a jurisdiction which 
it had not and abused it also. No law-abiding citizen can pay the 
slightest respect to the finding of the Warmoth board. But one per- 
son, at least, was bound to respect the findings of the other. That 
one person was the secretary of state. 

The law of Louisiana is explicit. Prescribing the duties of the 
board in canvassing and compiling returns, it says: 

One copy of such returns tln-v sliall fiU- in the (ift5ri> of the secretary of state, and 
of one co])y they sliall make puhlii pidcUunatiou l)y printiuL; in the otticial journal 
and such other newspapers as it may deem pro])ei-, ileclariuj; the names of all per- 
sons and oUieeis voted for, the iiumher of votes for each person, and the name of 
the persons wlio have heeii duly and lawfully elected. 

The returns tlni.-< inailn and promiilLiated shall he prima facie evidence in all courts 
of justice and l)cfore all civil olticers iialil set aside after a contest according to law, 
of tlie right of any person name<l t herein to hold and exercise the otlice to which he 
shall by such returns be declared to he elected. 

Nothing can be more explicit. Accordingly the Herron board filed 
its list of persons elected with George E. Bovee, who had in the mean 
time assumed the office of secretary of state under a jiulgment of 
the supreme court. The other board tiled its list also with Mr. Jack 
Wharton, who still pretended to be secretary of state. The statute 
further declares — 

That it shall bo the duty of the secretary of state to transmit to the clerk of 
the house of representatives and to the secretary of the senati' of the last (Jeneral 
Assembly a list of the names i>f such persons as aecordiiKj to the returns have been 
elected to ea(;h brandi of the Geneial Assembly. And it shall be the duty of the 
said clerk and secrctarj- to plac<' the names of the iipreseiitalives and senators so 
/i/rni'A/icd upon the roll of the house and senate respectively. Andtlio.se repre- 
sentatives and senatois whose names are so placed i)y tlie clerk and secretary in 
accordance with the forgoing iirovisions, and none other, shall be competent to 
organize the hou.se of rejiresentativcs and the senate. 

Both Bovee and Wharton transmitted their several lists to the clerk 
of the house of representatives and to the secretary of the senate. 

Which one of tliose rival secretaries the clerk of the house and 
the secretary of the senate would have recogniz(id is not perhaps 
certainly known. It is known wliich ought to have been recognized. 



11 

Louisiana said, speakiiii^ thi'ougli her highest court, tliat Bovee was 
secretary. Nobody said Wharton was but Governor Warmotli. 

But just here a new actor appeared npon the scene. Just at this 
point Judge Diu-ell, of the United States district court, came to the 
front. Up to this point Warmoth had seemed omnipotent. In- 
sensible to law, to right, to decency, he had trampled on the com- 
mands of the constitution, he had swapped judges, and dispensed 
commissions at will. Throughout the whole scene of anarchy and 
wild turmoil the democratic party had stood placid and serene. 
According to its mythology despotism all that time had slumbered, 
while the genius of liberty had laughed and clapped her hands. But 
suddenly the genius of liberty was seen to shudder and take her 
flight from Louisiana. Despotism in the form of Durell awoke and 
stalked into the arena. From that moment the memory of all pre- 
vious crimes was obliterated; the stifled voters, the rifled ballot- 
boxes, the suppressed returns, the false and forged returns, were all 
forgotten ; and the country from the Aroostook to the Belize, and 
from Key West to Sitka, has resounded with anathemas upon Judge 
Durell. Let it still so resound. It is not my i>urpose to defend 
Judge Durell. But it is my purpose to show that he did not " oi'gan- 
ize" the government of Louisiana; that he did not trench upon the 
authority of the State ; that he did not divert by a hair's breadth 
the current of her laws. How came Durell on that scene, and what 
did he there ? Let it be remembered that more than half the voters 
of Louisiana hold their right to vote not by the assent of the bal- 
ance of her people, but under the sanction of the Constitution of the 
United States. Congress stands specially instructed to legislate for 
the enforcement of that right. Congress has legislated for its en- 
forcement. 

By the act of May, 1870, two great commanding guarantees are de- 
clared to that right of suffrage. The third section provides substan- 
tially that when by the laws of a State an act- is required to be done 
as a condition for voting, an ofter to do the act, if wrongfully denied, 
is equivalent to doing it. In other words, that an otter to register, 
by one qualified to register, shall, if wrongfully refused, be deemed 
equivalent to registry. The twenty-third section provides that if one 
1)0 deprived of his election to any otitice, except that of elector for 
President, Vice-President, member of Congress, or of the State Legis- 
latiu-e, by reason of the denial of suttYage to any citizen on account 
of race or color, his right to such office shall not be impaired thereby. 
And such person may bring an appropriate suit in the circuit or dis- 
tinct court of the United States "to determine the rights of the par- 
ties to such oiiice." No lawyer, who concedes the validity of that 
act, will deny that under its sanction the courts of the United 
States had full jurisdiction to hear and determine the result of the 
election of 1872 for every officer voted for, with the exceptions named, 
if it was alleged that the result was controlled by the rejection of 
votes on account of color. And no lawyer will deny that on such 
hearing it was the duty of the court, to count in addition to all 
the votes actually cast for parties at that election, every vote actu- 
ally otfered and wrongfully rejected thereat. 

Under the sanction of that act William P. Kellogg and C. C. Antoine 
severally commenced suits in the circuit court of the United States, 
District Judge Durell presiding. Kellogg's bill was filed on the IGth 
of November ; Antoine's on the 7th of December. To one not famil- 
iar with Louisiana practice both bills seem crudely drawn. Very likely 
both would have been amended upon demurrer ; very likely some of the 



12 

averments would have been struck out upon motion. But no sncTi 
motion was submitted, no demurrer was interposed. Tlie court liad 
jurisdiction of tlie subject-matter. Both bills contained the juris- 
dictional averments, that, among other frauds perpetrated or con- 
templated, was this : That ten thousand lawful votei"s had been de- 
nied registration and suffrage on account of color. 

I was told that the honorable Senator from Connecticut, whom I 
do not see in his seat this evening, [Mr. Ferry,] said this afternoon 
that the only averment which gave the district court jurisdiction 
was an admitted perjury; that there was no pretense that any such 
voters were rejected. Why, Mr. President, the Senator fi'orn Connect- 
icut has been as much misled on this i^oint as I myself was several 
years ago. The testimony is past all denial that there were thousands 
of such votes rejected. But I did not expect to hear in the Senate 
that the jurisdiction of a court depended upon the truth of the aver- 
ments made in the bill. I supposed, so far as the question of jurisdic- 
tion was concerned, if the bill contained the proper averments the 
court would assume them to l)e true rather than disclaim jurisdiction 
upon the assumption they were false. 

Sir, the court had jnii.sdiction. 

Whatever the court did in such a suit might be avoided for error,, 
but it was not void. At least that is true so long as the court con- 
fined its action to the relief prayed in the bill. In one particular the 
court went beyond the prayer of the bill. To the Kellogg bill, Mc- 
Enery, the democratic canflidate for gftvernbr, was made defendant, 
with Warmoth and the Warmoth board of returns. A long catalogue 
of frauds was recited as having been perpetrated pending and subse- 
quent to the election. And the bill averred that all th )se frauds 
were to be consunuuated by the canvass to be made by Warmoth's 
pretended board of returns. The court was asked to restrain that 
board from making a canvass and to restrain McEnery from entering 
upon the office under color of their canvass. 

Antoine's bill was more sweeping in its averments and more abun- 
dant in supplication. In each case the restraining order was granted 
in the very terms asked for. Of this no complaint seems to have been 
made;. The tiiders were not even ajijiealcd from; they were simply 
disregarded. But on the night of the (>tli of DecemlK'r the judge issued 
an order in the Kellogg case not asked for by the bill. The material 
part of this order was as follows: 

It is liercby onlcred tli;it tlie marslial of the United States for the district of 
Louisiana shall foithwith take jiossission of the huihlinj: knovvu as Mechanics' 
Institute and (iccn|)ic(l as tlic- Slate liimse for the assembling of the Lciiishiture 
therein, in the city i)f Xew Oilcans, and h(dd the same subject to the fnrtiier order 
of tliis conrt, and in tlie mean while to prevent all unlawful asseiiiblaiic therein 
under the iruise oi' jirctext of autlmrily claimed liy virtue of ])reteiided canvass and 
returns made by said ]netendeil retiirnin;; olhcc^rs in contemjitand violation of said 
restrainiufi order; but the marslial is directed to allow the inj^ress and egress to 
and from the public offices iu .said hnilding of persons entitled to the same. 

That order has been widely and fiercely denounced. I join in de- 
nouncing it. It was a political and not a judicial order. By it the 
judicial ermine was draggh'd in the mire of jjolitics, and of Louisiana 
ixiliticsat tiiat; iiut liieorder harmed no num ; it deprived no single 
biMug (if a single liglit. 

It is said that order was void. I concede it for two rea.sons: First, 
because I think it was void; and, second, becau.se, so far as its eft'eet 
upon the character of the Legislature is concerned, it is wholly im- 
mati'riiil whetlu^r it was void or voidable. If voidable merely, it was 
a jiistilication for those who enforced it; if void, it was nojustilica- 



13 

tioii for any one. In neither case did it or could it extinguish any 
legal right. The wiiole scope of the order was to direct the marshal 
to take possession of the State-house and prevent «w/rt«j/'«i assembling 
therein. The marshal was expressly directed to allow ingress to and 
egress from the otJii-es to all persons entitled to the same. All it said 
or was intended to say is, allow all men to enter who have a right to 
do so ; but let no man enter upon the authority of the Warmoth board. 
All the law in Louisiana proclaimed i>recisely the same thing ; all the 
law in Louisiana declarecl that the Wai-moth board had no authority 
to license any one to enter the capitol of the State. That has been 
declared by the suprone court of Louisiana^ in numerous cases. I 
speak in the language of law and of common sense when I say a void 
order of the court can foreclose no riglit. If that (U'der was void, and 
in pursuance of it Marshal Packard kej^t any lawful member out of 
the State-house, he and all who abetted him, including the judge, are 
liable to the pai'ties aggrieved in damages to be recovered in any 
court having jurisdiction. Yet I have not heard that any such suit 
has been commenced. Sir, none will be commenced l)y any one 
who is responsible for costs. Those limd lamenting innocents dare 
not sue the judge or the marshal for keeping them out of the State- 
house, because tliose men simply prevented their doing what the law 
of the State forbid them to do. They know if they had entered that 
building and attempted to control the organi/ation of either house, 
every connnitliug magistrate in the city "was bound on complaint to 
issue warrants for their arrest. 

On such arrest they could ]dejid but one defense ; and that was the 
canvass and return of the Warmoth board. Smdi defense was impo- 
tent ; they knew it. The supreme court of the State has so especially 
instructed them and us. 

But it is said Durell's oi'di^r was actually enforced, and enforced by 
Federal bayonets. All that is true. Two soldiers cr()ss(Hl bayonets 
over the door of the capitol, and Warmoth's volunteers did not enter. 
But the nuin who does a thing is no worse than he who orders it done. 
If Dui'cll's order impaired no riglit, executing it impaired no right. 
If under that order men were kei>t out of the State-house who had a 
right to enter, the right survived the order of the judge and the duress 
of the soldiers. If those restrained, on the contrary, had no right to 
cTiter, then wrong only was baffled at the door of the capitol, and 
right triumphed there. 

The Court of Claims in this District has no equity jurisdiction 
whatever. It cannot rightfully issue an injunction in any case. 
But if it should issue an order, u])on the assembling of the next 
House of Kei)resentatives, directing the marshal to permit every man 
to enter who had a certilicate of elCction and to keep out all claim- 
ants who had no cei'tilicates, it is difficult to see who would be ag- 
grieved by that order. The General of the Army might set a brigade 
of artillery to enforce it. Still the House would be organized by 
the very men to whom the law assigns that duty ; and the lawyer 
who should declare such House to be organized by the Court of 
Claims wouhl be hooted out of professional circles. And even if the 
Court of Claims should do what Durell did not do ; if it should order 
that all who held certificates of election should be kept out and only 
defeated candidates be admitted to the House, does any lawyer sup- 
pose the Army could vitalize such an order as that ; that a House 
of Representatives could be organized in pursuance of it ? The first 
-attempt to enforce it would be the signal for the arrest of every 



14 

judge who issued the order and every man who attempted to execute 
it, whether in the uniform or out of it. 

This is a Government of laws, not of force. The laws are admin- 
istered by a variety of agents. Each one of these agents is protected 
60 long as he keeps within his prescribed sphere and does only what 
the law permits him to do. Not one of them has the slightest pro- 
tection outside of that sphere. And of all those agents not one is so 
jealously watched or more rigorously restrained within its prescribed 
orbit than the military power. Everybody else may trespass and be 
regarded with some indulgence, but the soldier who steps an inch 
beyond the line prescribed to him has no forgiveness in this world and 
is begrudged forgiveness in the next. This truth has been strikingly 
illustrated during the past few weeks. 

P^or years mobs, organized by a political interest and for a political 
purpose, have ravaged large districts of the country, have shed blood 
by the barrel and butchered men by the thousand. Except a little 
intermittent whining on the part of some petulant republican in Con- 
gress or an occasional lament from some republican newspaper, such 
crimes have created no concern anywhere. Patriot statemen seemed 
to think the tree of liberty grew all the more luxuriantly for being 
watered by the blood of the helpless. The few who complained have 
been jeered by the taunt that they were trying to make political 
capital. A great soldier who called professional murderers " bandits" 
has been denounced in this Chamber as untit to live. But, when 
the other day, live rioters had forced themselves in defiance of law 
into seats belonging to members of the Legislature of Louisiana 
and two soldiei-s at the request of the governor escorted them out 
without shedding a drop of blood, without making or even smooth- 
ing a wrinkle in iheir garments in doing so. a part of this Senate 
sprang to their feet as if they felt the Capitol begin to rock on its 
foundation. The Senator from Missouri thought he heard freedom 
shriek : the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] imagined he 
heard the last groan of the expiring Constitution ; the disturbed 
and overwrought fancy of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thlrmax] 
caught the despairing wail of Louisiana herself, dyingbecause her laws 
were enforced. The city of Boston a few years since saw her most 
renowned citizen brutally beaten in the Senate Chamber and her 
leading journal was moved to say only that the event was " unfor- 
tunate."' But when Boston saw De Trobriand, at the request of the 
governor unloose the clutch of five malefactors who held Louisiana 
by the throat, she fainted from excess of sensibility and was only 
restored to consciousness when Wendell Pliillijis threw cold water in 
her face. Later still, the city of New York looked on unrutHed while 
a political procession filed through her streets Haunting in God's sun- 
light a banner inscribed witli "Kansas and Sumner — let them bleed." 
Yet when New York saw a few soldiers restore peace and laic to the 
capital of Louisiana she made a rt'Si>octable attempt at hysterics. 
Her great jurist, who has learnedly discussed the history of the 
Constitution, was scared into utter forgetfulness of its text. Her 
great attorney, who keeps on hand the largest and most varied as- 
sortment of legal opinions to be found anywhere, seized the occasion 
to put on the market some of his goods more faded and shop- worn 
thaneventhe retail ilealersin ( alicoever caretooffer; and he whom, but 
a few days since, tlie Legislature of New York introdined to the coun- 
try a.s her "most eminent jioet,"' lie who sang so sweetly of " Thana- 
topsis" ami "A Forest Hymn,'' gave alarming symptoms that it was 



15 

time for liim once more to retire to the '' Solitudes" and " reassure his 
feeble virtue." 

Soldiers who were denounced as " Lincoln's hirelings," even when 
bleeding in the toils of civil war, must expect very bitter rebuke if 
they presume to disperse a mob. 

Mr. President, imder Durell's order no violence was done to any 
one. It surely sacrificed no life. It practically saved many lives. 
There is too much reason to believe that but for the presence of 
these soldiers Warmoth's volunteers, backed by his police, would 
have flooded the State-house. Then a collision between those having 
right to seats under the certificates of the legal board, and those 
claiming right under the certificates of the condemned board, is too 
probable. In that event the sacrifice of human life was sure to be 
the result. 

Still Durell left the domain of the judge and entered that of the 
politician. For that act he has been driven from the bench, and his 
name is made a theme of reproach throughout two hemispheres. 
History will some time take note of the difference between the treat- 
ment accorded to Judge Durell and that accorded to the late Chief 
Justice Taney. In Kellogg against Warmoth and others a district 
judge, having jurisdiction of the case, issued an order said to be void. 
He did it for i>olitical and party reasons. All that may be admitted. 
But it impaired no individual right. It tended to preserve right. 
It did not insult Louisiana ; it saved Louisiana from insult. It did 
not defy her authority ; it preserved her authority. 

But the case of Dred Scott against Sandford was not heard by a 
district court. It was tried in the court of last resort. That court 
avowed its utter want of jurisdiction. The issue was entirely feigned 
and purely political. The question decided was much disputed be- 
tween political ])arties, but not at all disputed Ijy the parties to the 
record. Dred Scott was made to claim his freedom. But he did not 
waut his freedom. His former owner had tried in vain to drive him 
into freedom and into Illinois. Sandford was made to resist that 
claim. But he did uot own Dred Scott. He, if a slave at all, belonged 
to the wife of a Massachusetts member of Congress. She for a long 
time was ignorant of the litigation ; and when by accident she 
learned of it, she at ouce took steps to manumit the man. The facts 
in the case were agreed to by counsel and not proved by witnesses, and 
could not be proved by witnesses. Sitting upon the trial of that 
mock cause, the Chief Justice dared to say that no State could make of 
a man a citizen, privileged to sue in the courts of the United States, 
though the man was born upon her soil and born free, if iie had any 
African blood in his veins; and he said all that in the teeth of many 
earlier decisions holding that a soulless corporation, a mere artificial 
person, created by the laws of the same Slate to make shoes or mop- 
handles, was such a citizen and privileged to sue in the Federal courts. 
And then, having declared that neither Dred Scott nor any of his race 
had any right to come into the Federal courts for judgment of any 
kind, the Chief Justice kei)t him there, made him the representative 
of his race, while he went on to pronounce a judgment as much more 
perverse and atnjcious than DurcU's order, as that order was more 
atrocious than Popham's judgment in the case of Monopolies. With 
nobody to speak for the great interests he undertook to doom, but 
such counsel as chose to appear for poor Dred Scott, he not only 
pronounced a judgment wliich consigned him to bondage, but one 
which annulled all the laws which Congress had enacted in the course 
of sixty years iinjhibiting slavery in the dirtcr<'nt Territories of the 



16 

Union, and -which refasteneil the cliains upon all who by migration 
to such Territories had been emancipated. 

it is doubtful if a judgment so sweeping or so malignant hi its 
effects was ever before given, not excepting the judgment which 
Charles I extorted in favor of ship-money, or that challenged by 
James II in favor of the dispensing power. Taney survived that 
terrible decree. One great ](o]iticMl party applauded it ; another 
party regarded it only as a foul blot upon the escutcheon of a great 
jurist. In spite of it the Chief Justice went down to his grave 
still honored ; and his country, while it reversed his sliameful de- 
cree, has but lately ordered his statue to be placed with that of other 
chiefs in the hall of that court wherein he consigned a man, and 
thought he consigned an empire, to slavery. 

Mr. Warmoth was defeated but not coiuiuered. He rallied for one 
more effort. Louisiana, re-eiiforced by two soldiers, hail maintained 
the supremacy of her laws. Louisiana law declared that those sena- 
tors and representatives whose names are placed on the rolls by the 
clerk and secretary, respectively, in accordance with the ceititicate of 
the board of returns, "and none other," shall be competent to organize 
the house of representatives aikl senate. Precisely those senators and 
members, " and none others," had been permitted to organize the sen- 
ate and house of re})resentatives. But having failed to force his 
volunteers into the capitol, Warmoth made one last effort to jerk the 
capitol from under the Legislature. The Mechanics' Institute, so 
called, in the city of New Orleans, had been occupied as the capitol 
of the State. There her Legislature has assembled year after year. 
There the governor and other executive and administrative officers 
of the State had their offices. There the new Legislature convened 
pursuant to Governor Warmoth's proclamation on the 9th of Decem- 
ber, 1872. But on the lltli of the same December the ii'repressible 
governor issued liis proclamation, naming the city hall as the capitol. 
There he betook himself, and there he assenibled all his volunteers 
who had been excluded from the Legislature by the board of returns, 
and some who had not been so excluded. And as he had before in 
defiance of law attem]ited to make a board of returns and secretary 
of state, judges, sheriffs, and attorney-general, he now attempted to 
make a Legislature. On the 10th of January, nearly a month after 
the governor opened his sidi; legislature, six senators deliberately 
withdrew from tlie senate sitting in Mechanics' Institute and re- 
]taired to the city liall. Nothing could nu)re forcil>ly demonstrate 
the utter and wanton disregard of law which characterized the whole 
Warmotli party than that act of the seceding senators. 

Louisiana has been paraded before the country and exhibited at 
every democratic fair as the nnudi-suffering, long-forbearing victim 
of oi)j)reKsion because certain men were kept out of her Legislature, 
every (me of Avhom her laws ])roliibited from entering the door. Yet 
when six senators, whoso rights to seats were untiuestioned, volun- 
tarily withdrew therefrom, according to democratic diagnosis Lou- 
isiana was nut hurt but healed thereby. Mere common sense would 
be ajtt to conclnde that a State would snlb^r as much, when one she 
]iad commissiom'd as senator, withdrew from her service, as when one 
she had refusiul to commission, was excluded from that service. Ac- 
cording t(» dcimocratic dialectic's Louisiana rejoices when her laws 
are detied and agonizes only when they are obeyed. 

Yet those senators not only left th«^ senate after they liad acted 
■with it for a month, lint they assembled with a body which for a 
month I hey had dtMiied to be a senate. A senator, even a Louisiana 



17 

senator, though a democrat, should be able to discover the senate- 
house in less than a month. But vSenator Todd and his seceding col- 
leagues seem to have believed the senate of Louisiana was an 
itinerant body and traveled with them ; that where they went the 
senate went, and where they rest^ed the senate rested. Those gentle- 
men left the senate and published to the world, their reasons for 
going. Only one of those reasons demands my notice, and that only 
because it suggests the real difficulty iu tlie Louisiana case. They 
make no question as to who composed the board of returns, but they 
pithily say "the question who constitutes the legal returning board 
is subordinate to the question what are the returns. The returning 
officers may count in or count out members, but the returns will 
show for themselves." 

The very gist of the Louisiana case could not be more succinctly 
stated. A board of returns may count in men who are not elected 
and may count out men who are elected. Nowhere is that great fact 
better understof)d than in Louisiana. What they refuse to under- 
stand there is that the law of Loiiisiana declares the count of the 
board of returns to be prima fade correct, and that those, and only 
those " counted in" are allowed to take part in the organization of 
the Legislature. That ahouseand senate organized by those "counted 
in," to the exclusion of those " counted out," is the only authority to 
correct the count of the board of retiirns. Tlie board of returns may 
certify that one is elected to the house when the returns in their pos- 
session show another to have been elected. But tlie law of Louisiana 
is explicit, and says even in that case the certiiicate is prima facie evi- 
dence of riglit to a seat, and the remedy for that foul wrong is for 
the house, when organized, to lay before the world the true returns, 
seat the true member, and consign the faithless board to infamy. If, 
as is possible, at least in Louisiana, the board returns a majority as 
infamous as themselves, that majority may coniirm and not correct 
the outrage. The only redress for such a villainy is to appeal to the 
people at the next election. But if, as is possible, the people are as 
corrupt as the members of the board and the members of the house, 
then the State is hopelessly imbedded in corruption, and her people 
at least are iiutitted for self-government. 

"The I'eturns will show for themselves," it is said. Only upon one 
condition will they show for themselves. They must be seen before 
they will show for themselves. The returns of the Louisiana election 
have not been seen, only in part; and no one yet surely knows how 
large or how small a portion of the returns have been seen. But even 
when seen the returns will only speak for themselves. They are not 
sure to speak for the parislies. Unhappily a parish supervisor can lie 
as well as a board of returns. Very strong proof is required to rebut 
the evidence that some of those supervisors did lie in 1872. And the 
returns when truthful are not conclusive of tlie vote of the precincts. 
The returns when true only show the state of the boxes when opened 
by the supervisor. The boxes may have been falsified by the com- 
missioners before the supervisor saw them. Many of the boxes in 
1872 were so falsified. Nor is the box when not stuffed conclusive of 
the election ; ballots from illegal voters may be, and iu Louisiana 
were, received into the boxes ; ballots from legal voters may be, and 
in Louisiana were, excluded from the boxes. 

Undoubtedly it is the duty of the hotise wlien a seat is contested 

to disregard the certificate of the board if it be contradicted by the 

returns. 8o it is the duty of the house also to disregard the returns, 

if it be shown bv comjietent proof that they do not present the true 

2 H 



18 

state of the boxes when the voting closed. Even the boxes may be 
impeached by proof that illegal votes were deposited in them or le- 
gal votes exchided from them. The houBe of representatives, when 
organized and called npon to adjudicate between rival claimants to 
seats, has but one question to solve — what was the actual wish of the 
constituency? In the solution of that question the certificate of the 
returning ofricer, the return of the supervisor, ballots received by 
the connnissioners of election, are only so many difterent witnesses, 
and all those witnesses may be contradicted by the testimony of the 
electors, showing that some who voted were disqualified to vote, and 
others who were qualified were denied the right to do so. Whoever 
would impeach the judgment of the House must show not merely 
that it is not supported by one or the other of those witnesses, but 
that it does not conform to the will of the constituent body. 

No man legally accredited was excluded from the capitol by the 
military guard employed by Marshal Packard in 1872. Every man so 
excluded on the 9th of December, 1872, and every man removed from 
the house on the 4th of January, 1874, was attempting a criminal 
usurpation. He was in open and flagrant revolt against the supreme 
authority of tlie State. He would liave been no guiltier if he had 
attempted to force himself into a judicial office as Elmore did, or into 
an executive or municipal ofhce as others did. It will not do to say 
they were in fact elected, for two reasons : First, because no one 
knows the fact to be so ; and, second, because if the fact were known 
to be so, yet lacking the certificate of the ret urning ofificers, they could 
not be permitted to seats but by the vote of the house or senate after 
its organization. 

In 1855 the vote for governor in Wisconsin was very close. The 
State canvassers were democrats. They gave their certificate to the 
democratic candidate. That certificate was prima facie evidence of 
his right to the ofnce. But it was well known that in order to arrive 
at that result the State canvassers had added to the returns made by 
the different counties a few hundred votes said to have been given 
at isolated and unauthorized precincts not known to the county 
ofificers. They pur})orted to come from localities where no poll could 
be legally held, where no vote was given, where no voter lived. 
They were certified by persons who could not be found. It was a 
patent, audacimis fraud. But no man in Wisconsin thought of resist- 
ing by force tlie candidate who received tlie ccrtilicato. Ho was 
inaugurafcid witli imposing ceremonies, both civil and military. But 
juntas soon as the ceremony was concluded the true claimant filed 
an information in the supreme court. That information averred the 
true result and tlie unlawful intrusion. In about sixty days the 
court, after a full disclosure of the frauds, gave judgment for the 
relator. The intruder ^\ alked out and the lawful governor walked 
into the executive cliambcr. 

But in Louisiana, upon the mere naked, unsupported assumption 
that men ought to liave had certificates who did not have them, it 
is clnmorously insisted they ought to have acted precisely as if they 
had them, 

'I'lio.se men attempted to seize by violence npon the liigh preroga- 
tives of a Legislature. They were defeated. 

And light liere in the Senate CI amber, as if we were as deaf to the 
voice of law as Louisiana seems to be, while not one word of criti- 
cism lias been bestowed upon tliose who attempted that daring crime, 
the utmost cai)al)ilities of our larguage have been exhausted to sup- 
ply ciiithets sufliciently opprobrous to hurl at tiiose who prevented 



19 

it. It really seems as if iu Louisiana, crime brought glory to a demo- 
crat, while to prevent crime makes a republican infamous. 

Durell, wearing the mantle of a Federal judge, stepped in between 
the contending factious of Louisiana. He said, " Thus far, and no 
farther."' He did not once put aside his mask to assure the crowd it 
was only Durell that roared and not the nation. The mob, conscious of 
guilt, mistook him for the nation, and straightway threats were 
changed to laments, bluster to entreaty, the hovering satellites of 
murder skulked to their holes, anarchy smoothed its wrinkled front, 
law and order reigned in New Orleans, peace staid her flight from 
the doomed city, and democracy, clothed in sackcloth, abandoned 
itself to despair. 

Judge Dui'cll has been crucified. That ought to be accepted as a 
sufficient atonement for his offense. 

The board of returns has been loudly condemned for issuing certifi- 
cates of election to parties without having the official returns. But 
they demanded those returns and were denied them. Why stone the 
board for discharging their duty upon the best evidence they had, 
and yet applaud the governor who refused them better evidence? 

The board has been loudly condemned for counting votes which 
were never jiolled. They dicl that in two instances. Eleven hun- 
dred and fifty-nine votes were so counted from the parish of Bossier, 
and twelve hundred and six from Natchitoches. They were counted 
upon the affidavits of so many colored citizens, wdio swore they were 
qualified to vote and oftered to vote, but were denied the right. It is 
not certain the boaixl was authorized to count such votes. It is cer- 
tain the Legislature would have been bound to count them if true. 

There is every prol)ability the affidavits were true. In the parish 
of Bossier 1,795 colored voters were registered, and the commission- 
ers of elections admit that only 555 republicans of both colors were 
allowed to vote. So in Natchitoches, 1,875 colored voters registered 
and the conunissioners admit the polling of only 555 republican votes 
of both colors. Why stone the board for counting votes which ought 
to have been received and yet applaud the comiuissioners of elec- 
tions for refusing to receive them? 

From the parish of Plaquemines similar affidavits were obtained 
which were not true. 

One Theodore Jacfues testified that he forged 1,313 such affidavits, 
and that he never saw the inen whose names he signed to them. It 
is a monstrous story. Like Blanchard's story of his registry, its mon- 
strosity alone gives It credibility. The man is evidently capable of 
just such conduct. Whether he did what he swore he did, or swore 
he did what he did not do, there would seem to be no limit to his 
capability for villainy. His avowed theory is "that all tricks are fair 
in politics." It is difficult to conceive what use they make of peni- 
tentiaries in Louisiana if such men keep outside of them. He told 
the Committee on Privileges and Elections he had concluded to quit 
politics and go to farming. Let us hope it is so. It is possible the 
generous soil of Louisiana will not shrink from such contact. That 
is probably the only form of matter that could endure it. 

How many of those affidavits were counted does not appear. It is 
not certain any were counted. It is evident all were not. The super- 
visor of elections returned 1,034 re])ublican votes from that parish. 
The board of returns returned only 2,ltJ3. If that board counted any 
of those affidavits, it is difficult to understand why they did not count 
the whole. If they counted none, it is not apparent how the return 
of the board was made to vary so much from the return of the super- 



20 

the republican candidate for member of Congress. The republican 
candidate was returned elected by a majority of less than 100 votes. 
The jurisdiction of the House of Eepresentatives over that single 
piece of rascality is complete. The House can adequately expose and 
if not adequately, can partially punish it. 

A very few words will suffice to show how far the President is 
committed to the Government organized in pursuance of the finding 
of the board of returns. It will be remembered the President was 
not a member of that board. He had no communication with it. He 
exerted no control over it. He supplied none of the evidence upon 
which it acted. He withheld none of the evidence which it ought to 
have had. The board was purely a State tribunal. It spoke in the 
name of Louisiana, not in the name of the United States. Its decrees 
were Louisiana decrees, not United States decrees. Prior to the publi- 
cation of their fiiuling William P. Kellogg had commenced suit in the 
United States court to vindicate his title to the office of governor. The 
suit was expressly authorized by act of Congress. Process in the name 
of the United States, tested by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 
issued in that suit on the 16th of November. The Attorney-General 
had been informed that Warmoth had disregarded the orders of the 
court. " Tliat the enforcement laws had been defied by over one-half 
of Warmoth's election olhcers." That the United States circuit court 
had "restrained Warmoth and his canvassing board from canvassing 
votes pending a trial of rule for injunction." All this was known ta 
the President. It was also known that Warmoth was running a pri- 
vate board of returns in defiance of Louisiana. That by the usurjjcd 
authority of that board he had resolved to set up a government in 
accordance with the prophecies of the previous summer, and organ- 
ize a Legislature which would elect McEnery for governor and him- 
self for United States Senator. 

Such was the situation when on the 3d of December the Attorney- 
General telegraphed to the marshal — 

Yon are to enforce the decrees and mandates of tlie TTnited States courts, no 
matter by whom resisted, and General Emory will fiuiiish you with all the neces- 
sary troops for the purpose. 

That was all — that was the sole utterance prior to the organization 
of the so-called Kellogg government. That was all the President had 
to do with the organization of that government. That telegram was 
sent before Duridl had issued his order to Marshal Packard, du-ecting 
him to take i)ossession of the capitol. The Senator from Kentucky 
[Mr. Stkvkxso.n] tliis afternoon very candidly acknowledged that 
the President was bound to assume that the orders and decrees of the 
Federal courts would be correct and not incorrect. When he issued 
that ord(u- he had no intimation tliat any decree that was not valid 
had issued from tlie court or would issue from the court. 

"You will enforc'c the decrees aiid mandates of the United States 
courts, no matter by whom resisted," said the Attorney-General. 

That brief dlspatcli was eminently republican. I liave no disposi- 
tion to deny tliat. The republican party has for a long time rather 
made a point ui)on enforcing tlie decrees and mandates of the United 
States courts. It liasexiicuded a great deal of treasure, of blood, and 
of life to i)reserve in this great country that stat« of obedience to 
law which would enable the process of "the United States courts to 
run evi-ry where througluuit its limits. 

Another Cabinet minister sent a similar dispatch into that very 
neighborhood a few years before. That minister did not content 



21 

visor. It is said those affidavits were obtained to aid the election of 
himself with directing his sultordinates to enforce the decrees of 
the conrt. Sncli decrees are express commands of the nation, attested 
by the highest judicial magistrate in the nation. Whoever resists 
such decrees is in open revolt against the authority of the nf^tion. 
The Attorney-General merely told his subordinates not to surrender 
to such a revolt, but to enforce the national command in spite of the 
revolt. Secretary Dix was a little more explicit and more startling 
in his directions. Ho poiitted his subordinates not to an express 
command of the nation, not to a sealed writ from a court, but he 
pointed them to a more insensible emblem of the national authority, 
a mere silken fabric, suspended from a wooden shaft, inscribed with 
only the simjdest devices and with no commands, entitled to no sort 
of respect only from the fact that the nation had adopted it for its 
ensign and had ordered it to float from that shaft ; and yet Dix told 
his subordinate if any man" attempted to haul down that tlag to "shoot 
him on the spot." 

If Secretary Dix can be forgiven for ordering the man to be shot 
who insults the flag, surely tlie President ought to be forgiven for 
directing tlie decrees of the United States courts to be enforced. 

The precise purpose of republican Presidents is to enforce the de- 
crees of the courts. They are sworn to take care that the laws are 
faithfully executed. The'laws cannot be execute<l nnless the decrees 
of the courts are enforced. For that very purpose he has command of 
an Army and Navy. While President Grant continues to command 
the Army the decrees of the United States courts will be very apt to 
be enforced. 

Democrats may reason diflerently of the duties of a President ; 
they may snppose it to be the duty of a President to enforce the de- 
crees of a caucus instead of the courts. The last democratic Presi- 
dent v/e had, obedient to caucus, but regardless of law, kept the 
Armv very still while a terrible rebellion organized for its bloody en- 
counter. 'What countless millions a single regiment would have been 
worth in December, 181)0, if thrown into Fort Sumter in connuand of 
General Sheridan, and under a President who had '-confldence" in 
in him! • 

Sir, what nse the next democratic President will make of the Army 
cannot perhaps be foretold with certainty. But it is already painfully 
evident that unless the democratic party shall be born again before such 
a President assumes command of the Army, the Ku-Klux of the Caro- 
linas and the White Leagues of Louisiana will have nothing to fear 
from it, nor will the hunted peasantry of the Sonth have anything 
to hope from it. 

I repeat, sir, the only part the President enacted in the organiza- 
tion of the government of Louisiona in 1872 was to say that the de- 
crees of the United States courts must be enforced. Before he was 
called upon to say or do anything further the Legislature of the State 
had assembled in pursuance of the proclamation of Governor War- 
moth. In the senate appeared twenty-nine members; thirteen of 
them were senators Iwlding over; eight were new senators whose 
elections were certified by both boards of returns ; two were senators 
whose elections were certified by the legal board from districts in 
which the pretended board returned no election ; the remaining six 
were returned by the legal board from districts from which the other 
board returned other members. 

In the house appeared and were sworn in sixty-nine members; 



thii'ty-tliree of them were returned by both boards ; the rest were 
returned bj' the legal board only. The names of every one of those 
members in either house had been inscribed on the roll by the clerk 
or the secretary, the only ofticers who could rightfully put any 
name on the roll. Every name had been transmitted to the clerk or 
secretary of the senate by the secretary of state, and had been certi- 
fied to liim by the board of returns. Every one of them was there- 
fore authorized by the very letter of the law to take part in the or- 
ganization of their respective houses. Others having the same right 
to participate did not do so ; not however because they could not, 
but because they would not. No representative ever appeared in 
any legislative body with more formal or legal credentials. There 
was but one power in Louisiana which could impeach the right of 
one of those membei's, and that was the house in which he took his 
seat. Whoever else denies to one of those members the character 
of representative, puts the law of Louisiana under his feet. 

Against the authority of that Legislature so organized, in strict 
conformity to the laws of the State, Warraoth openly revolted. 

On the very day it assembled, the house of representatives im- 
peached him, and on tlie same day the two hoiises by joint resolution 
requested the President to furnish that protection guaranteed to every 
State when threatened by domestic violence. The President hesi- 
tated. On the 11th of December the Attorney-General rex)lied to the 
request of the Legislature as follows : 

"Whenever it becomes necessary in the jiidgraeut of the President the State will 
be protected against domestic violence. 

The President was plied with entreaties from various parties to in- 
dicate which organization he would recognize. He was assured his 
decision would restore quiet. 

On tlie 12th the Attorney-General telegraphed to the acting gov- 
ernor in these words : 

Let it be understood tliat you are recognized by the President as the lawful 
executive of I^oni.siana, and that the body assembled at Meclianics' Institute is 
the lawful L('t;i,slatur(i of tbc State, and it is suggested that you make proclama- 
tion to (hat. cticct, and also lliat all lU'ccssaiv assistaiicr will be i;ivt-n to you and 
the JiCgislature lieiein rifogni/.cd to prottct the State from disorder and violence. 

A simple declaration of the Attorney-General in advance of the 
actual necessity for the emjtloyment of force, a sim])le proclamation 
making known what was the o})inion already arrived at. 

Still Warmotli refused to submit, and on the 13th General Emory, 
commanding tlie United States forces at New Orleans, telegraphed to 
the Adjutant-tJeneral of tlie Army as follows : 

There is imminent danger of immediate conflict between two armed bodies of 
men of some considerable numbers — one body of Stair militia rcincscjitiiig (iover- 
nor Warmoth, holding an aiseual; the other an armed body of jiolici', ropn-.seiitinjT 
Governor I'inchback. I have been apiicaled to to int(^rlVru. Shall I do so; and if 
I interfere, to which party shall the ar.scniil lii' delivered ? The parties are face to 
face with arms in their haiids. I began immediate answer. Iscntan otHcer to try 
what can be done by persnasion t« siisiiend the coiitlict until an answer can be re- 
ceived. There will be no resist«ince to the Federal forc(is. 

That Avas from General Emory, and in reply to that dispatch, and 
on that very day, the Adjutant-General replied to General Emory : 

You may use all necessary force to preserve the peace, and will recognize the 
authority of Governor Pinch'ba<;k. 

There was the final dicision. The President might have decided 
dilferentl.v; but he Avas compelled to decide. A])pealed to for ])rotec- 
tion by tliose who claimed to represent a State, he could not escape the 
resjxmsibility of giving judgment upon the validity of that claim. 



23 

AVhctlior lie was active or passive, whether lie spoke or kept silent, 
he concluded the right of the parties to the conflict. If he granted 
the protection asked for, he recognized the authority of the jiarties 
asking for it. If he denied that protection, he denied the right to ask 
for it. If he denied the right of one party, he of necessity aflirmed 
the rightof the other. To ignore the character of the hody in Mechan- 
ics' Institute was to assert the renresentative character of that in city 
hall. 

Such was the necessity which hedged the President in. The light 
in which he acted was very murky. Clouds and thick darkness denser 
than the fog which covers Newfoundland rested upon the case before 
him. Ingenious, unscrupulous men, hating light and courting dark- 
ness, had done their utmost to obscure the trutli. Great pivotal 
questions arising upon the laws of the State which have since been 
decided by the supreme court were then in litigation. If under such 
circumstances he had erred, charity would have f(nind some milder 
epithet than that of despot, knave, or blockhead by which to char- 
acterize him. Bat he did not err. He struck the truth of the case 
in the very white. He had no means of investigating the actual re- 
sult of the voting at thedifterent election precincts. He could right- 
fully inquire and determine only what the constituted tribunals of 
Louisiana said of that result. 

The law was very plain that the Legislature of the State should 
determine the result of the election for governor and lieutenant-gov- 
ernor. But he found two diftereut assemblies claiming to be the 
Legislature. The law was very plain that the secretary of state 
must furnish the list of senators and members elected. But he found 
two men claiming to be secretary of state. The law was very plain 
that only the board of returns could canvass the vote and inform the 
secretary of the result. But he found two tribunals claiming to be 
a board of returns. He decided that Lynch and his associates were 
the true board of returns ; that Bovee was the true secretary of state ; 
and he obediently followed their determinations. In both those con- 
elusions he is supported by the highest judicial authority of the State.. 

All the authority thei'e was in Louisiana declared the Legislature 
which made Kellogg governor and sent Pinchback to the Senate to 
be her Legislature. That declaration concludes this Senate or it does 
not. The determinations of State tribunals as to the result of a local 
election are or are not final. It has been ably maintained in this 
Chamber that under the power to guarantee republican forms of gov- 
ernment to the several States Congress is charged with the duty of 
supervising all their elections, and to see that all the results attained 
are in accord with the will of their people. Others have urged that 
the power confided to this Senate to judge of the electitni of its mem- 
bers of necessity clothes it with the authority to inquire and deter- 
mine the election of every member in that Legislature which sends a 
Senator here. 

Mr. President, I do not now deny either of these propositions, nor 
do I aflirra either of them; but upon this proposition I take my stand. 
If there be in the Senate or in Congi'css the ])ower to review and 
reverse the determinations of a State as to the election of her ofticers, 
there is but one legitimate way in which to prosecute that review. 
We cannot correct the decision of a superior tribunal by the judg- 
ment of an inferior one. Still less can we correct the decision of a 
real tribunal by the declarations of a mock tribunal. We cannot 
impeach the canvass of a board of returns by the canvass of those 
who merely pretend to be a board of returns. Xor can we impeach 



21 

the fiijding: of the board of returns by the returns themselves unless 
we have true and full returns. Such returns the supervisors never 
made of the Louisiana election for 1872. The certificates of return- 
ing officers, of supervisors, and of comnjissioners may lie contradicted 
by the testimony of the electors themselves. If the Senate has any 
duty in the premises it is not to inquire ■\v)iat this agent or tbat agent 
said about the election, but what the people themselves said at the 
election. If McEnery was elected governor in 1872 it is easy to show 
it, unless democrats have destroyed the records it was their duty to 
preserve. 

The books of registration will sshow the name of every elector who 
was registered in 1872 ; the poll-lists will show the names of those 
who voted ; they themselves can tell in case of dispute how they 
voted. Comparing the poll-lists with the registry you will have the 
names of those who did not vote. If any of those Avho did not vote 
tried to do so and were wrongfully denied the right, their votes must 
be counted as if they were cast. The act of May, 1870, expressly com- 
mands that. If Congress is the tribunal of last resort up^u the elec- 
tion of a governor, or a sheriff, or a parish jndge, Congress will un- 
doubtedly see that the requirements of its own statutes are observed. 
No pnulent democrat who is fanuliar with the circumstances sur- 
rounding the election of 1872 will court such an inquiry. 

No such inquiry has yet been made. The Committee on Privileges 
and Elections were charged to inquire whether Eay or McMillen 
were elected to the Senate by the Louisiana Legislature of 1873. 
They appeared in January of that year; the term for which they 
claimed expired on the 4th of March following. Both of those claim- 
ants required a speedy determination, not a thorough investigation. 
Both protested against going Ijack of the prima facie title. They 
managed the contest ; they marshaled the testimony, and when 
neither of them had moi'e evidence to offer the inquiry closed. 

It has been repeatedly asserted that the investigation of that com- 
mittee proved Mclhiery's election. I undertake to say, sir, it stops 
very far short of showing any siu-h thing. To my understanding it 
shows too clearly for doubt that Kellogg was elected. I do not for- 
get the various and contradictory conclusions to which different mem- 
bers of that committee arrived. One member thought Kellogg was 
elected and the Itody sitting in Mechanics' Institute was the true" Leg- 
islature. One thought McEnery was elected and the assembly at city 
hall was the Legislature. One thought the result of the election was 
so mixed that a s])ccial Legislature should be convened by act of Con- 
gress, co)>si8iiiiri of pirmns to he vamcd hi the act, and that Legislature 
should determine who was elected. The rest of the committee con- 
cluded that the r(!sult was so mixed it never could be ascertained, and 
so advised that Congress sliould order a new election. 

If I am ev(U' found hcrealYer intolerant of any, even the wildest 
vagaries in human oitiniou, it will be a sufficient reproof to remind 
me that I voted in 1873 to order a new election in Louisiana. The 
report of the couunittcio was made on the 20th of February. The 
session ended on tlu'. 4th of March. 

The testimony occupied nearly a thousand pages. It was impossi- 
ble to examine it. The committee was divided'into four parties. I 
shut my eyes and went with the strongest party; porliai)S not so 
much because it was the strongest party as because it was led by my 
colleague, [Mr. Caiii'kntick,] in whose fidelity as a republican aiid ii\ 
whose accunicy as a lawyer I had then as I have still very great 
confidence. Besides, the eccentricities of Judge Durell and the vil- 



25 

lainies of Theodore Jaques had been brandished before niyeycs nuiil 
I had come to believe, the more my track diverged from theirs, the 
more likely I was to be right. Even in following the majority my 
greatest fear was that we might be unjust to McEnery. 

The majority of the committee urged that democrats perpe- 
trated fraud enough to vitiate their title under that election. But 
they did not point out the frauds. The chairman of the committee 
pronounced the election an " organized fraud," but he did not explain 
what that meant. Senator Hill thought the election in some parishes 
unfair and in oWiexs fraudulent , but ux)ou the whole as fair as Louisi- 
ana is accustomed to see. 

Senator Trumbull admitted that "fraud was practiced in some of 
the parishes and that irregularities existed in others," yet he coti- 
cluded the election was not unfair in " more than two-thirds of the 
State," and he thought it ought to satisfy a reasonable Senate if it 
was fair in a third of the State. 

All was vague, shadowy, and uncertain touching the wrongs com- 
mitted at and prior to the election. But after the election the narra- 
tive assumed the utmost amplitude of detail. The mistakes of the 
board of returns, the antics of Durell, the forgeries of Jaques, the 
action of the President, were served up to us hot and smoking, were 
hashed and rehashed, and the whole castor of rhetoric was emptied 
into the mess for seasoning. So I lost my way ; and I soon came to 
fear the majority of the committee had lost their way. My colleague 
knows that more than once I told him he had failed to convince me 
that McEnery was not elected, and he knows that when a year 
ago I commenced the examination of the testimony for myself, I ex- 
pected to find the evidence of that election and was resolved in such 
case to declare it. But two candidates ran for governor. No one 
pretends there was a tie vote. It is morally certain one or tlie other 
bad a majority of the votes cast on the 4th of November. Whoever 
had that majority was elected, unless colored votes were offered for 
the other candidate and illegally rejected, enough to overcome that 
majority. If such was the case, then the other candidate was elected. 

If McEnery had 5,000 majority of the ballots cast for governor, but 
5,001 votes were offered for Kellogg but rejected on account of color, 
then it is evident if the 5,001 votes had been received Kellogg would 
have been elected. It is also just as evident that in such case he was 
elected notwithstanding the rejection of those votes. The statute is 
peremptory. Kellogg's title to the office cannot be impaired by such 
rejection. And that is the language of your own law. If you want 
to go behind the decision of the Legislature of Louisiana, behind the 
certificate of the secretary of state, behind the certificate of the 
board of returns, behind the judgment of the supreme court of that 
State; if you want to go to the election precincts, go there and 
ascertain not only how many votes were given, but in obedience 
to your own statutes inquire also how many of those votes were 
legal and how many legal votes were rejected from those boxes. 
Until you have done that you must not undertake to control the de- 
cisions of Louisiana. If all voted who tried and were entitled to 
vote, you have only to count the actual votes to determine who was 
elected. If some were excluded from voting who were entitled to 
vote, you have only to add theirnumbcr to the number of votes given 
to determine the result. In either case you have a result. 

Either Kellogg or McEnery must have been elected in 1372. And 
it was not McEnery. I infer that from circumstances. First, I do not 



26 

believe the real democracy of Louisiana wanted to triumph at that 
election. Victory could yield them no fruits. Victory meant only to 
make Greeley President, Warmoth Senator, and McEuery governor. 
The democracy of Louisiana had no use for either. Greeley they 
had hated from their earliest knowledge of him. Warmoth they had 
hated not so long, but with more singleness of heart. McEnery they 
had no use for. He is not of their kind. He talks well enough for 
their purposes, but when they wanted a governor for use last Sep- 
tember they put McEnery to bed and brought Penn to the front. 
Penn they cherish. He is a young man of spirit and of mark. T.ike 
him out of Louisiana politics and he would be an ornament to his 
kind. Penn was all that victory could bestow upon the democratic 
party in 1872. But they could ill alltbrd to swallow Greeley, War- 
moth, and McEnery for the little flavor there was in Penn. It was 
taking altogether too heavy a dose of aloes for the small measure of 
rum. 

I infer ilcEnery was not elected, because if he had been the fact 
would have been made certain. As I have shown, the whole ma- 
chinery of the election was numaged by democrats. If they had the 
votes to elect their candidate, they Avoiild have taken good care to 
preserve the evidence of them. Instead of manufacturing a board of 
returns with no will but his to count the votes, Warmoth would have 
submitted them to the count of the legal board and would have in- 
vited all New Orleans to see them counted. 

Mr. President, I infer McEnery did not receive a majority of the 
votes cast; because if he had his friends would hardly have ventured 
upon all the villainy they practiced; they would have cherislied and 
not debauclied the boxes and returns which showed that election. 

But, sir, even if he did receive a majority of the votes actually put 
into tho.se boxes, I still insist he was not elected. The will of the 
people of Louisiana was not expressed through the ballot-boxes in 
1872. It was excluded from them. I submit one single feature of 
that election to the Senate, and I challenge any candid Senator to 
deny that if Warmoth's supervisors truly reported the state of the 
ballot-boxes, it was only because the people were excluded from them. 

In 1872 Louisiana was divided into lifty-six parishes. In twenty- 
seven of these parishes there is practically no dispute about the 
result. Those parishes are Ascension, Bienville, Caldwell, Cameron, 
Carroll, Claiborne, Calcasieu, Concordia, Feliciana East, Feliciana 
West, Franklin, Jefferson, La Fayette, Livingston, Ouachita, Placiue- 
mines, K('(l Kiver, Richland, Sabine, Saint Charles, Saint .lohn Ba])tist, 
Saint Landry, Tensas, A^ermilUon, Vernon, Washington, and Winn. 

There is evidence of bad conduct at some of the i)olls, eveuiii these 
parishes; and the vote from one large republican precinct in Jeffer- 
son was rejected by Warmoth's returning officers because his conmiis- 
sioners had stuffed the box. But upon the whole the two parties 
differ but litth; in their count of the voi,es for governor in those twenty- 
seven parislies, and in every instance they returned the same mem- 
bers to the house of ropi'esentatives. 

Accepting, then, the work of the Warmoth party in those parishes 
as correct, we have this result. 

The Warmoth board state the vote for governor as f(jllows : 

For K.'lloKp; 2-3,nfiO 

Tor McEuery 1H,078 

Majority 4,882 



''7 

Of tlie registered vote in the same parishes there were — 

Kack 34,391 

White 22,816 



So a bLack majority of 11,575 is admitted to have giveu a republi- 
can ma.iority of 4,b>5'2, exclusive of that majority thrown away in 
Jefferson. 

This is not the result of a fair election, but the result of an election 
which bore some resemblance to a fair one. 

No candid man will deny that if suffrage had been as free to black 
as to white in those parishes, as large a percentage of blacks as of 
whites would have voted. Still it is conceded that where there was 
a colored majority of 11,.575 registered votes, there was a republican 
majority of 4,882 votes cast besides the Jefferson precinct. 

Now, sir, look at the report from twenty-eight other parishes, the 
balance of the State except New Orleans.' 

In those parishes the white voters registered numbered 31,762 ; the 
colored 42,432. 

The colored majority on the registry -books was 10,670. A cloud 
of witnesses have tostilied that every si»ecies of fraud and every kind 
of force were employed in these parishes to stifle the voice of the 
republican party. The board of returns deny the election of one 
single member from all the representative districts in those parishes 
whose election is asserted liy Warnioth supervisors. Every mem- 
ber is disputed from twenty-eight parishes. Not one is disputed from 
twenty-seven parishes. 

Now, I wish the country would heed what I am about to say : 

Ont of those 31,762 wliite voters registered, the Warmoth party 
claimed to have polled 25,391 democratic votes. Ont of those 42,432 
colored voters they concede a republican vote of but 19,272! In a dis- 
trict which registered a colored majority of more than 10,000 voters, 
there is claimed a democratic majority of more than 6,000 votes! 
Democrats controlled tlie registration. The whites were largely over- 
registered. The blacks were largely underregistered. Democrats 
controlled the election, and with a thrift unprecedented in politics 
they gathered live-sixths as many democratic votes as they had 
white voters upon their swollen poll-lists, at the same time they 
made that pinched and parsimonious registration of colored voters 
seem like a profligate waste of space on the registry-books by return- 
ing less than half as many rej)ublican votes as they had colored 
voters. 

In these fifty-five parishes the colored voters registered were 3.5,000 
more than the republican votes therein. Can that be explained upon 
the hypothesis of an overregistry of colored votes? When legal 
voters of the unfashionable color followed the supervisor by the day 
to secure registration, did 35,000 such men get on to the books who 
did not belong there ? Can it be explained upon the hy])othesis that 
men who registered did not care to vote 1 But did men who were not 
anxious to vote travel miles and search for days to get their names 
on the x>oll-books ? Does any man doubt, dare any man say he doubts, 
that twenty or even thirty thousand of those new-born and perhaps 
over-ardent citizens wished to vote, tried to vote, and did vote, unless 
they were denied the right? Were they denied tlie right f These 
democrats denied them, and no man's right to office can be impaired 
by such denial. Such is the law. Did they vote ? These democrats stole 
their ballots from the boxes, and no man's right to oilice can be im- 
paired by such a larceny. Such is the law. 



28 

Tb;tl is the style of electiou championed hy the democratic party 
in Louisiana and by their allies in this Chamber. Warmoth presided 
over that election. The voice of thirty-five thousand colored citizens 
"was stifled in fifty-five parishes. Seven thousand more were hushed 
in New Orleans. Warmoth was the great magician whose pliant 
fingers manipulated the machine. The democratic party supplied 
the r.apt and admiring auditory which filled every circle in the thea- 
ter from the pit to the upper gallery. Such was the election by 
whose atrocious results Warmoth attempted to chain Louisiana. To 
force such infamous conclusions upon the people of the State War- 
moth |)layed the double role of anarch and monarch from November 
13 to December 9 ; to consummate tluit smoking villainy he attempted, 
partly by force and partly by fraud, to supplaut a legal board of 
returns by a sham one ; to tamper with written laws, and, in the 
absence of a Legislature, to change them ; to drag a judge from the 
bench ; to eject a secretary of state from his office ; to commission a 
crowd of his henchmen to fill the puljlic offices ; to jiack the supreme 
coui't of liis state ; to defy its authority ; to divide and destroy the 
Legislature ; and even to disregard the mandates of the Federal 
courts. For enterprises infinitely less criminal Cataline was sent 
howling out of Rome. lu these enterprises Warmoth was foiled. A 
blundering judge, more solicitous for the peace of the State than 
for the dignity of his office, the first magistrate of the kind probably 
which Louisiana ever saw, caused two soldiers to be stationed at the 
door of the capitol, and the conspiracy was dissolved into vapor. 
The cackling of geese at an unseemly hour, it is said, once saved Rome 
from her conspiring enemies. The terrified but not ungrateful city 
slew the conspirators and deified the geese. When a similar cack- 
ling saved New Orleans, the liberty- loving but ungrateful city wrung 
the neck of the goose and is doing her best to deify the disappointed 
conspirators. 

Mr. President, I do not forget hoAv largely my conclusions as 
to the result of the Louisiana election in 1872 are based upon the 
assumption that white citizens were generally democrats and col- 
ored ones were republicans. And this brings me to the pithy and 
altogether i^ertinent question asked by the Senator from Missouri the 
other day. 

In tones which were restrained from derision only by that courtesy 
which never forsakes him, he said : 

Bnt I aak you, sir, what kind of logic, vrliat statosmanship is it w(^ witness ao 
frequently on tliis floor, which takes the .statisti<'.s of ]).ipuIiitiou of a State in liaiid 
and then proceeds t« reason thns: So many <:>lini d j)ei>iile, so many wliitc ; tlifirfoie 
80 m.any colored votes, so many white "votes, an<l tlierefore sii many rcp\il)lir;iii 
votes and so many democratic votes ; and if an electiou does not sliow tliis exact 
proportion, it must be necessarily the result of fraud and intimidation. 

I will tell the Senator what I think of that logic and of that states- 
manshi]). The logic is uiii(jue. I admit it seems iiiconseqiumtia!, 
almost grotesque. IJut it is irrefragable. It cannot be confuted. 

And that statesmanship ! At the first glance it seems extremely 
whimsical, not to say absurd ; but when we come to consider, it is 
frightftdly practical. A man who goes about swathed in disinfect- 
ants when no contagion is near we cannot help but regard as a 
hypochondriac. But he who goes along the thronged thoroughfares 
without disinfectants when the atmosphere is surcharged wit h plagues 
is regarded as little less than a lunatic The statesman who argues 
that the republican vote should be nearly proportioned to the colored 
voters in Louisiana is simply one who does not close his eyes upon 



29 

the most obvious, tLe pivotal fact in the politics of that State. The 
colored people of that State are republicans. The white people are 
as a rule democrats. If there were no reasons "why it should be so, 
the evidence is conclusive that it is so. 

A large majority of the voters are colored. And yet of the whole 
number, Mr. McMillen, the witness who claimed to be Senator under 
the election of the Warmoth legislature, testified he did not know 
one who voted the democratic ticket. Mr. Packard, the chairman of 
the republican State committee, testified he knew of but one, and he 
was one who tried to vote the republican ticket and could not do so 
for want of registration. 

Democrats helped him to registration, and before the ink got dry 
on his certificate he voted the <lemocratic ticket. 

When two witnesses so well informed cannot recall in the aggre- 
gate but one colored man who voted the democratic ticket out of 
more than half the voting iiopulation, it is idle toi)retend that many 
did vote it. 

But there are obvious reasons why no colored man can vote the 
democratic ticket. The whole effort of the democratic party has 
been, and still is, to organize parties ui^on the "color line." It boasts 
itself the "white man's party." It champions a "white man's govern- 
ment." The domination of white over black is the very essence of 
the democratic pai"ty. Upon any x>olicy but that no democratic party 
can be mustered. Do you think it can ? If it can be, try it. Demo- 
cratic supremacy means the subjection of the colored race and it 
means nothing else. 

Upon every conceivable theory of political economy; upon every 
possible scheme of finance, whether affecting currency, taxation, or 
expenditures; upon every individual proposition for internal im- 
provement or commercial progress ; iipon every plan suggested for 
the amelioration of all citizens of both races ; democrats are divided, 
and hopelessly divided. On tbe contrary, so often as a policy is pro- 
posed or an idea suggested, which promises advantage to the white 
race from which the blacks are excluded, the democratic party with 
one mind embrace and with one voice applaud it. 

Sir, it is not strange tlie colored citizen will not vote the demo- 
cratic ticket. To do so, is to vote for his own exclusion from the 
civil state. The special wonder of after times will be that any 
white man could be found at this time to vote that ticket either. 

History still points with loathing to those savage epochs when the 
Greek swelled with hatred of the helot ; the Jew with hatred of the 
Gentile ; the Roman with hatred of the barbarian ; the Saxon with 
hatred of the Celt. But the instinct of self-preservation lay at the 
base of all those hatreds and partly excused them. The helot was a 
living menace to the Greek ; so was the Jew to the Gentile, and the 
barbarian to the Roman, and the Celt to the Saxon ; returned the hate 
they experienced, and to the extent of their opportunities repaid all 
the remorseless oppression they sufiered. 

But with what unutterable loathing will the future historian look 
back to these degenerate days, eighteen hundred years after Christ 
died, as much for the black man as for the white ; look back to see four 
millions standing in the midst of forty millions, all alike citizens, 
distinguished from each other only in the accident of complexion; 
the few jnst snatched from the realm of chattels, very poor, very ig- 
norant, very helpless, but with capabilities equal to the best. That 
is exemplified in a few individuals who, here and there, despite the 



30 

most malignant fortune, have contrived to acquii-e tlie learning 
•which enables them even in the parliament of the nation to maintain 
their cause successfully against the most practiced debaters there. 
The multitude very rich, very powerful ; arrogant from cer-taries of 
culture and control. The few, threatening nobody, asking no special 
privileges, no nursiug.no extraordinary aids; supplicating only to 
be let alone, to have all disabilities removed, to be allowed to stand 
up if they can get up. to go forward if they can get onward, to be 
allowed the free use of such fa-culties as generations of serfdom have 
left to them ; to be admitted to the pale of an equal citizenship. And 
out of that multitude, so rich in capabilities, so abundant in resources, 
a great party organization having but one common boast, that they are 
themselves white ; having but one common tie, that they hate the 
black : cherishing but one common aspiration, that they can still 
dominate him — that they can stand on his skirts now. andean get on 
his neck again presently — and animated with this single groveling 
hope they swagger of their Caucasian lineage: they preach the gos- 
pel of hate through Caucasian organs ; they form, they arm Cau- 
casian leagues, and throughout large districts have domesticated, not 
savage beasts, but the most savage crimes to drive the weakest and 
most helpless of our kind from all assertion of their citizenship. 

There is no doubt colored citizens would vote with democrats only 
that democrats will not let them vote at all. And democrats cannot 
let them A'ote because they would then cease to be democrats. To be 
a democrat no longer means to be in favor of the people's supremacy. 
We have now a new dictionary given to us ; to be a democrat now is 
simply to deny that colored citizens are people and to affirm that call- 
ing a professional murderer a bandit is a capital offense. It seems to 
me the Senator from Missouri will be wise to concede on the whole 
that the colored people of Louisiana are republicans. If they are not, 
why not let them vote? If they will vote the democratic ticket 
they will vote just as sensibly as that Senator does. If they will 
vote the republican ticket, they will in my judgment vote much more 
sensibly than he does. 

Mr. President, the practical question born tons out of this election 
is, shall Mr. Piuchback be admitted ti)tlie Senate 1 

Now we know that Louisiana has but one Senator here. We know 
she is entitled to two. We know her Legislature must choose her 
Senators. We know her Legislature is the body which makes her 
laws, and we know the body which sent Piuchback here is the body 
which for two years made laws for Louisiana. How, then, shall 
we avoid seating Mr. Pinchback ? Why, we can say. if we are aa 
reckless alxnit what we say as a Louisiana board of election commis- 
sioners, that we do not know whether the men who composed that 
Legishiture really belonged there. 

hut if we say that we shall not tell the truth. We do know those 
men were enrolled as members by the clerk of the house, and the secre- 
tary, who were the only men in Louisiana authorized to make up such 
roll; that the namesofthftse members were trausmitted to those otHcers 
by George E. Hovee,the secretary of state, and certified to hiui by John 
Lj-nch and his associates, acting as a board of returns. Still, if we 
choose, we can say tliat Hovee was not secretary of state and that 
Lynch and liis associates were not the board of returns. In saying 
that we shall simj)ly traiiiph; upon tlie authority of repeated decisions 
of the, supreuK^ court of that State. But we can say that the Legis- 
lature, the secretary of state, and the board of returns are contia- 
dicted by the certificates of tlie parish supervisors. There are three 
/lifHculties w the wav of saving tha*. 



31 

First. We have not seeu all those certificates, nor has any one else. 

Secoud. They are already impeached. 

Third. They are incompetent to contradict the board of returns. 
If we wish to contradict the board of returns, it can only be done by 
showing what the electors say and not what the parish supervisors 
say. 

Well, sir, we can say, if we dare, that the electors of Louisiana 
did not choose the members of that Legislature. But we have two 
reports from the electors. That which comes to us through the Lynch 
board says these members were elected. It will embarras*^ us to rely 
upon that report. It will embarrass us still more to rely upon the re- 
port of the Warmoth board. That report does indeed declare that 
some of those members were not elected, but it declares that out of 
99,000 colored voters registered, to say nothing of white republicans, 
only 59,000 republican votes are accounted for by that board. 

More than 40,000 republican votes are not returned. A cloud of 
witnesses we know have testified that many of these votes were ex- 
cluded from the boxes ; many were abstracted from the boxes. We 
have made no attempt to ascertain how many were excluded, how 
many were stolen. Other witnesses we know have testified that many 
republican votes received and not stolen have been practically an- 
nulled by democratic ballots, not put into the boxes by democratic 
voters but stuffed into them by democratic commissioners. We have 
made no attemyjt to ascertain how many. Our way is full of difli- 
culties. But let us not despair. When a thing must be done, there 
must be a way for doing it. 

Driven to extremities, we can at last say: "True, a few thousand 
democratic voters were manufactured in Louisiana in lfC2, but they 
were manufactured by Warmoth and his subordinates ; that is no con- 
cern of ours. True, some thirty or forty thousand republicans were 
strangled at the same time, but they were strangled by Warmoth 
and his subordinates; that is no concern of ours. True, every tribu- 
nal in Louisiana has denounced the outrage ; but we cannot listen to 
Louisiana. We cannot redress the wrong, and we will not let Louisi- 
ana redress it." Yes, Ml". President, we can say all that if we try very 
hard ; and saying that we can send Pinchback home to Louisiana, 
limit the representation of the State in this Chamber to one Senator, 
and then we can hold up our heads with Warmoth and Blanchard 
and Thorp, the supervisor of Iberville, and their allies here and every- 
where. Then we will be complimented by the reform press as friends 
of freedom and purity in elections ; and then if we caunot get mus- 
tered into the ranks of the southern white-leaguers it will not be be- 
cause our consciences are feared, but because our courage is distrusted. 



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